Pam’s Pictorama Photo Post: Betty poses here with this sprightly Felix strolling on a stick – a toy I have bid on, but not won to date. In pencil on the back it reads, Betty Jewel 1927 Arizona Bound (followed by something I cannot read which might be C/SE7). This photo has been cut down to its current, approximately, 8″x 10″ form as you can tell from the white margin at the bottom. Another actress is almost, but not quite, cut out of the photo. Since no other women are credited on the film I can’t even make a guess.

Betty is very perky here indeed. This film, currently lost, starred an as yet relatively unknown Gary Cooper. The Wikipedia entry has a brief plot from the film which seems to portray Gary’s character as spending all his time looking after his white wonder horse Flash – love that. White wonder horse – hotsy-totsy I say! The IMDb database has a review by someone who says that saw 90 feet of it at the Library of Congress. (Unfortunately, it would not appear to be the piece with Felix in it I will add.) I have slipped in another still from the film – this one between Betty and Gary, although again, sadly minus Felix.

Betty Jewel, born Julia Baroni, on April 29, 1899 in Omaha, Nebraska died in 1963. She has eight acting credits between the years of 1923 and 1927 – with three of them in 1927 and she disappears from the scene after that. Betty seems to have started in the biz as a Ziegfield Girl in the teens. (As Kim pointed out, this means that there is a nude photo of her bouncing around as there is of each Ziegfield girl – and sure enough Google images complied. There is a semi-nude photo of her by the Ziegfield photographer Alfred Cheney Johnston. I was unable to grab a usable image so you will  have to search on your own if you are interested.)

Meanwhile, Gary Cooper was bursting forth on the scene and ’27 was a turning point for him with seven films. Not many of these seem to survive however. Kim contributes that Cooper’s big break was in the 1926 film The Winning of Barbara Worth. He is not the star, Ronald Coleman is, but instead a supporting role, competing for Vilma Banky. The film does survive in good condition and a great looking clip that has Gary in it can be found on Youtube here: The Winning of Barbara Worth. Obviously, Gary continues to work and moves into more leading roles. As one review points out though, maybe it wasn’t until you could hear his rather wonderful voice in sound films that he really takes off.

I digress however. Getting back to Felix who brought us here in the first place. Those of you who have frequented Pictorama in the past know that in his day, everyone posed with Felix and that he made such guest appearances as this in numerous films and with many stars of the day. By way of reminder, these former posts are part of the genre and I have linked to some of them below. For those of you these posts are new to – enjoy!

Felix Plays a Prime Prop
Felix is the Cat’s Pajamas – Zita Harrison and Pagliaccio the Cat
Mistinguett – Felix Goes to the Dogs
Felix Makes the Picture Better!